PROJECT TRACKER: Rebuilding Taunton City Hall

Friday

Jul 18, 2014 at 11:01 PMJul 18, 2014 at 11:30 PM

DAYS SINCE FIRE: 1,425

Charles Winokoor Taunton Gazette Staff Reporter @cwinokoor

DAYS SINCE FIRE: 1,425

The Details

Taunton’s historic City Hall at 15 Summer St. remains closed since a mid-morning arson fire on Aug. 17, 2010. City workers, department heads and the mayor’s office are working out of the former Lowell M. Maxham School building on Oak Street.

Estimates to repair the downtown building have ranged as high as nearly $25 million.

The person who set the short-lived, attic fire has yet to be apprehended, despite accelerant-contaminated clothing evidence authorities have said is consistent with the crime scene.

The building, which from the outside appears undamaged, suffered only modest fire damage. Water poured in to put down the blaze in the attic ruined the walls and ceilings below.

Progress

Mayor Thomas Hoye Jr. and other officials have said the first step toward repairing City Hall will be the demolition of the Star Theater/Leonard Block building, an 144-year-old, four-story structure that stands less than 50 feet from City Hall.

Taunton assumed ownership of the dilapidated Star Theater in 2013, when a housing court judge found the former owner in contempt for ignoring orders to undertake significant structural repairs and also to remove piles of junk from its ground floor.

The city received a $4.8 million settlement from its insurance carrier, but was paid only $3.2 million from Axis Capital Holdings of Bermuda, which withheld the balance, arguing that Taunton missed a deadline to provide a design plan.

The $1.6 million balance represents money that would eventually be used to pay for state safety and Americans with Disabilities Act upgrades.

In response, Taunton’s law office filed suit in 2012 for $6 million in damages. Of that amount, $1.6 million is being sought from Axis and $4.4 million from the city’s former insurance agent, Farrell Backlund Insurance Agency of Taunton.

A Brockton demolition company has been awarded a contract for $560,555 to raze the Star. But the job has been held up for almost four months due to a disagreement between the city and Dolores Milho, whose New York Lace building shares a wall with the Star.

Her brother and legal counsel, Joseph deMello, has advised Milo not to sign a construction easement agreement, until she has sufficient assurances from JDC and the city that her building and employees will not be at risk, and that her daily business won’t be unreasonably interrupted.

DeMello said he is still waiting for the demolition company to present a final design plan on which he will base his decision.

“I have not heard anything whatsoever. I just know about it from what I read in the paper,” deMello said.